Thursday, June 30, 2016

Department of Justice officials filed a motion in federal court late Wednesday seeking a 27-month delay in producing correspondence between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s four top aides and officials with the Clinton Foundation and Teneo Holdings, a closely allied public relations firm that Bill Clinton helped launch.

If the court permits the delay, the public won’t be able to read the communications until October 2018, about 22 months into her prospective first term as President. The four senior Clinton aides involved were Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Michael Fuchs, Ambassador-At-Large Melanne Verveer, Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, and Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin.

WNU Editor: We have a tradition in our family of lighting a candle every Friday night to remember those we know .... and do not know. Tomorrow our candle will be lit to remember the 1,000,000 who were killed or wounded in this battle.

A protester reacts as the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi is seen in flames during a protest by an armed group said to have been protesting a film being produced in the United States September 11, 2012. Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters

Casualties sustained during the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, could have been much higher if it was not for the work of a mysterious CIA officer, according to an official report from the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

The report, released Tuesday, noted that U.S. military support did not arrive to aid the small contingent of U.S. personnel defending the consulate during the attack. Instead, it was a militia made up of former Gaddafi loyalists known as Libyan Military Intelligence (LMI) that would come to the rescue of the U.S. officials several hours after the attack. According to the report, the militia group came to the aid of the officials thanks to a quick-thinking CIA officer known only as “Officer A.”

Read more ....
WNU Editor: The irony of former Gaddafi loyalists coming to the rescue of U.S. officials thereby limiting the number of casualties to only 4 U.S. KIA (instead of a massacre of an untold number) .... I just cannot help myself but shake my head. I have mentioned this many times before .... around the world many people do hate the U.S. government .... but many of these same individuals are smart enough to differentiate the U.S. government from its citizens .... even to the point of risking their lives to help and protect them.

* On night of 2012 attacks, government officials whether Marines should wear military or civilian uniforms
* Marines had to change FOUR TIMES in three hours
* The U.S. also failed to scramble military assets in time to stop the attack on the U.S. Benghazi compound
* Top official at Hillary Clinton's State Department said he was sensitive to not diminishing security through overt presence

Add to the litany of failures during the Benghazi attack a serious wardrobe malfunction.

As the Sept. 11th, 2012 attack raged, government officials debated whether U.S. Marines being dispatched should don their military uniforms or wear civilian clothing, according to a new report being released by Republicans on the select Benghazi committee.

The report cites one commander who said as forces got ready to deploy, 'during the course of three hours, he and his Marines changed in and out of their uniforms four times,' NBC reported.

WNU Editor: The U.S. main stream media has moved on with this story .... too bad .... there are still too many embarrassing details on how the administration reacted during (and after) this crisis that should not be ignored. And while (in hindsight) this Marine rescue detachment would never have arrived in time to save these 4 Americans .... the fact is that during this crisis the priority was on what clothes should they wear .... instead of going there .... should give chills to everyone.

Tuesday’s attacks at Istanbul’s main airport, which appear at this time to be the work of Islamic State, are the latest reminder that the United States should not downplay the group’s rudimentary – yet effective – tactics.

Since the wave of Islamic State suicide bombings in May – killing 522 people inside Baghdad, and 148 people inside Syria – American officials have downplayed the strategy as defensive. Brett McGurk, the Special Presidential Envoy in the fight against Islamic State, said the group "returned to suicide bombing" as the area under its control shrank. The American strategy of focusing primarily on the “big picture” recapture of territory seems to push the suicide bombings to the side. “It’s their last card,” stated an Iraqi spokesperson in response to the attacks.

The Obama administration is considering a plan to coordinate air strikes on Nusra Front and Islamic State militants in Syria if Syria'a government stops bombing moderate rebels, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

The U.S. backs the moderate rebels, who are under pressure from Islamic State and government forces, but the plan depends in part on whether Russia is willing to press Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, its ally, to stop bombing them, Many U.S. officials and outside experts doubt Moscow is willing to do that.It also would require moderate opposition forces to disentangle themselves from Nusra and move into identifiable areas where they would be vulnerable to government and Russian air attacks.

The court struck down the second appeal by Japanese Muslim plaintiffs against what they perceive as an unconstitutional invasion of their privacy and freedom of religion.

A 2010 leak of 114 police files revealed nationwide surveillance of Japanese Muslims. The files revealed that Muslim places of worship, halal restaurants and Islam-related organisations across the capital, Tokyo, were being monitored.

The Obama administration has proposed a new agreement on Syria to the Russian government that would deepen military cooperation between the two countries against some terrorists in exchange for Russia getting the Assad regime to stop bombing U.S.-supported rebels.

The United States transmitted the text of the proposed agreement to the Russian government on Monday after weeks of negotiations and internal Obama administration deliberations, an administration official told me. The crux of the deal is a U.S. promise to join forces with the Russian air force to share targeting and coordinate an expanded bombing campaign against Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, which is primarily fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

BEIJING — The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague said on Wednesday that it would announce its rulings in a contentious case between China and the Philippines over the South China Sea on July 12.

The landmark case centers on the Philippine government’s argument that China’s claims over much of the sea, a strategic waterway in the western Pacific, are illegal under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Philippines initiated the case in 2013 after China seized Scarborough Shoal, an atoll that the Philippines administered and that was a favorite fishing ground for Filipino fishermen.

A special five-member tribunal established by the court in 2013 will also decide on the size of maritime zones around rocks and reefs in the Spratly archipelago off the Philippine coast. It will also rule on whether China has caused environmental damage in constructing an artificial island at Mischief Reef.

In a historic move, the Pentagon on Thursday lifted its ban on allowing transgender men and women to serve openly in the military.

The announcement at the Pentagon by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter follows extensive study by the U.S. military to remove one of the last discriminatory hurdles for military service, treating gender identity on par with race, religion, color, sex or sexual orientation.

“Our mission is to defend this country, and we don’t want barriers unrelated to a person’s qualification to serve preventing us from recruiting or retaining the soldier, sailor, airman or Marine who can best accomplish the mission,” Carter said. “We have to have access to 100% of America’s population for our all-volunteer force to be able to recruit from among them the most highly qualified -- and to retain them.”

WNU Editor: Even though there are wars that are now happening around the world where scores of U.S. troops are in danger .... this is the important news from the Pentagon and from the US Defense Secretary today.

More News On The Pentagon Lifting The Ban On Transgenders Serving In The Military

The tables have turned in this week’s White House Watch. After trailing Hillary Clinton by five points for the prior two weeks, Donald Trump has now taken a four-point lead.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey of Likely U.S. Voters finds Trump with 43% of the vote, while Clinton earns 39%. Twelve percent (12%) still like another candidate, and five percent (5%) are undecided.

(Donald Trump has had a few rocky weeks on the campaign trail, and it shows in the latest Fox News Poll. Just over half of Republicans would rather have someone besides Trump as their nominee, and his support in the presidential ballot test has dropped seven points since May.

Democrat Hillary Clinton is up 44-38 percent over Trump in a head-to-head matchup. Earlier this month, Clinton had a three-point edge (42-39 percent). In May, Trump was up by three (45-42 percent). Clinton’s current lead is just inside the poll’s margin of sampling error.

WNU Editor: These polls are meaningless .... two weeks before the election is when they should be taken serious. But for political junkies .... discussing and reading up on these polls is better than opium (or in my case .... Scotch .... correction .... almost as good as Scotch .... almost).

Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has suspended the Russian Navy’s Baltic Fleet commander over shortcomings in organizing sailors’ combat training as well as filing distorted reports to superior command, according to the ministry.

“The commander of the Baltic Fleet, his chief of staff and a number of officers have been suspended by the defense minister [Sergey Shoigu] after an inspection,” read a Defense Ministry statement released on Wednesday. “They are expected to be deposed from their positions and dismissed from the armed forces.”

Shoigu criticized military commanders whose poor performance led to “serious shortcomings in their duties,” the ministry’s press service added.

Three suspected Islamic State suicide bombers who killed 42 people in a gun and bomb attack at Istanbul airport this week were from Russia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, a Turkish government official said on Thursday.

The attack on Europe's third-busiest airport was the deadliest in a series of suicide bombings in Turkey this year.

The three bombers opened fire to create panic outside, before two of them got inside the terminal building and blew themselves up. The third detonated his explosives at the entrance. A further 239 people were wounded.

Istanbul (CNN)Turkish officials have strong evidence that the Istanbul airport attackers came to the country from the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa in Syria and that ISIS leadership was involved in the planning of the attack, a senior Turkish government source told CNN Thursday.

Officials believe the men -- identified by another Turkish official and state media as being from Russia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan -- entered Turkey about a month ago from Raqqa, bringing along with them the suicide vests and bombs used in the attack, the source said.

The Obama administration has proposed a new agreement on Syria to the Russian government that would deepen military cooperation between the two countries against some terrorists in exchange for Russia getting the Assad regime to stop bombing U.S.-supported rebels.

The United States transmitted the text of the proposed agreement to the Russian government on Monday after weeks of negotiations and internal Obama administration deliberations, an administration official told me. The crux of the deal is a U.S. promise to join forces with the Russian air force to share targeting and coordinate an expanded bombing campaign against Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, which is primarily fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

An unscheduled meeting between the U.S. attorney general and former President Bill Clinton at an airport in Phoenix on Monday could present some unwanted political problems for both.

The former president, who was waiting to depart the state, boarded Loretta Lynch's government aircraft shortly after she landed in Arizona for a community policing event. Lynch later told reporters there the conversation centered on "his grandchildren."

"It was primarily social and about our travels," including golf he played, Lynch said.

WNU Editor: This is beyond stupid. Even fellow Democrats cannot defend this ....Democrats groan after Bill Clinton meets Loretta Lynch (Politico). If it was not for this ABC affiliate reporting this story .... we (the public) would never have known about it. As to them just talking 30 minutes about their grand-kids and travels .... please .... who are they fooling.

More News On Bill Clinton Meeting Privately With The U.S. Attorney General While His Wife Is Under FBI Investigation

U.S. President Barack Obama shakes hands with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto as they depart a news conference along with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (R) at the North American Leaders' Summit in Ottawa, Canada June 29, 2016. REUTERS/KEVIN LAMARQUE

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, who has previously likened U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, said on Wednesday he only drew the comparison as a reminder of the devastation wreaked in the past.

Speaking at a press conference alongside U.S. President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau, who have gathered in Ottawa for the "Three Amigos" summit, Pena Nieto warned of the dangers of populism in a globalized world.

"Hitler, Mussolini, we all know the result," he said when asked to explain the comparison. "It was only a call for reflection and for recognition, so that we bear in mind what we have achieved and the great deal still to achieve."

WNU Editor: I am getting tired with these ridiculous Hitler comparisons and rationalisations. I heard it when George Bush was President (from my brother of all people), and I am hearing it now. After-all .... it was the Obama administration that limited Iraqi refugee applications to the U.S. in 2011 (see link here) .... does that make President Obama Hitler? It was Canada's NDP Party .... a progressive and labour oriented political party that opposed Nafta and trade deals in the 1980s (see link here) .... is that a reason why they should be linked to Adolf Hitler? Absolutely not!!!! But when Donald Trump pushes the same and/or some version of this agenda .... Hitler comparisons abound. Being one whose entire family was impacted by Hitler and the Nazis .... and who has heard more than his share of what life was like when Germany invaded the Soviet Union .... it does a great disservice to the reality on how evil and utterly destructive Hitler was by making these silly comparisons. But .... I guess .... this is the state of politics today. Sighhh .... I guess I better get use to it.

American sailors who were detained by Iran in January gave away too much information to their captors and were seized in the Gulf following a series of missteps by the crew and their superiors, the U.S. Navy said in a report on Thursday.

The report said some of the 10 crew members, detained at gunpoint Jan. 12 by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), had revealed sensitive information, such as phone and laptop passwords, to the Iranians.

At the time of their capture, an international incident that rattled nerves days before the implementation of a nuclear accord between Iran and world powers, the sailors were in transit in two vessels from Kuwait to Bahrain.

Iran used the detentions for propaganda purposes that kept the incident in the headlines for weeks afterward.

* Active shooter drill was supposed to start at the Maryland base at 9am
* But at 9am an alert was issued saying there was a 'real world' shooter
* The situation is unfolding at the base's Malcolm Grow Medical Facility
* Security tightened at other nearby army and naval bases
* VP Joe Biden was due to fly out of the base on Thursday morning

Vice President Joe Biden was due to arrive to board a plane.

All personnel were ordered to shelter in place shortly after 9am Eastern Time.

It came at the same time that an active shooter training exercise was due to start at the base.

Vice President Biden was scheduled to fly out of Joint Base Andrews on Thursday morning to give a noon address on cancer treatment and funding in Cuyahoga County, Ohio.

He is now waiting at the Naval Observatory for further information.

Officials tweeted that the situation is centered on the base's Malcolm Grow Medical Facility.

A pair of Taliban suicide bombers killed dozens of people, including police cadets and the first responders who arrived to administer aid after the initial attack, in a coordinated assault in the Afghan capital of Kabul. The attack is the third large scale assault by the Taliban in the capital since April.

The first suicide bomber targeted a convoy of buses carrying police cadets as they traveled in the Company area of Kabul City from neighboring Wardak province, according to TOLONews. The second suicide bomber then detonated his explosives as emergency personnel rendered aid to the victims of the first blast. At least 27 people are reported to have been killed in the twin bombings.
Read more ....

* U.S.-led coalition aircraft waged a series of deadly strikes against ISIS
* They took place south of the city of Fallujah, which was recently liberated
* At least 250 suspected fighters were killed and 40 vehicles destroyed
* Strikes came the day after a suicide bombing at Ataturk Airport killed 42

A U.S.-led coalition aircraft waged a series of deadly strikes against Islamic State around the city of Fallujah in Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 250 ISIS fighters.

The strikes, which took place south of the city, where civilians have also been displaced, are just the latest battlefield setback suffered by the terror group in its self-proclaimed 'caliphate' of Iraq and Syria.

One U.S. official cited a preliminary estimate of at least 250 suspected fighters killed and at least 40 vehicles destroyed, Reuters reports.

If the figures are confirmed, the strikes would be among the most deadly ever against the jihadist group.

Main public face of Brexit makes shock announcement hours after his key ally Michael Gove launched his own campaign

Boris Johnson has unexpectedly ruled himself out of the Conservative leadership race, hours after his key ally Michael Gove announced a challenge for the top job on a turbulent morning.

Speaking at a hotel in central London, where he had been expected to launch his candidacy, Johnson gave an upbeat speech, saying the agenda for the next prime minister was for the UK to become a more outward-looking nation that resets its relationship with Europe.

About Me

I have been involved in numerous computer science projects since the 1980s, as well as developing numerous web projects since 1996.
These blogs are a summation of all the information that I read and catalog pertaining to the subjects that interest me.